The Army’s uniformed acquisition chief senses a “disturbance in the Force,” regarding Army modernization that involves identifying an inflection point where the service can no longer effectively upgrade legacy combat systems and must transition to next-generation technologies.

“New this year we will put together an ends, ways and means strategy for certain critical … combat systems in order to make sure we understand exactly when we run out of physics, if you will, on incremental upgrades and when the Army must begin to invest in next-generation systems,” Lt. Gen. John Murray said Sept. 19 at a breakfast hosted by the Association of the U.S. Army at its headquarters outside Washington, D.C.

Murray, who as the Army’s deputy chief of staff G-8 oversees all acquisition programs, described his vision of the next few years of Army modernization and said the issue would likely be a major theme of AUSA’s annual meeting in October.

“I see, fundamentally, a change in direction – not a sea change – a shift in direction about how the Army is thinking about modernization,” Murray said. “There are a lot of changes coming. And like I said, it’s not a sea change, but there is a change in direction for where the Army is headed, a disturbance in the Force, if you will.”

Murray described the disturbance as a “shift in direction” rather than a dire omen. But to fit current needs and modernization musts into its foreseen budget will require careful program management, he said.

“Key to that will be looking at the … enabling technologies, at the maturity of those technologies and really putting a timeline together to inform that decision point as we have to make that decision when we transition to a next-generation combat system,” he added. “When we make that decision, the Army creates risk for itself because to do that, we will have to free up resources and to free up those resources has to come from incremental upgrades unless the Army’s budget goes up, which I’m not expecting.”

Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), under the leadership of Gen. David Perkins, is developing a comprehensive modernization strategy aimed at achieving just that sort of way forward, Murray said. The strategy is called for by both the House and Senate versions of the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Depending on when that law is enacted, the strategy could be due as early as December, Murray said.

The list of difficulties facing Army modernization is a long one. The service is again supporting a war in Iraq and is set to increase the number of boots on the ground in Afghanistan by thousands of soldiers.

A $600 million increase in research, development and acquisition funding in fiscal year 2018 was welcome but almost all the plus-up went to replenishing stockpiles of munitions fired in combat in those two conflicts, Murray said.

For the ninth year, the military will begin the fiscal year under a continuing resolution (CR) that holds it to the previous year’s spending level. On Jan. 1, across-the-top sequestration cuts of 10 percent will kick in unless Congress acts to stop it.

Budgetary troubles force the Army to maintain its current vehicle fleets, weapons and equipment stocks and plan for the future within funding levels that are unlikely to grow. The Army is consistently asked to do more with the same, Murray said.

Ahead of the publication of TRADOC’s modernization strategy, Murray laid out his personal professional opinion of how the Army should proceed. The prong is the continuation of incremental improvement to legacy combat systems, he said.

“We will have to invest in incremental upgrades in order to ensure that our soldiers have the best possible equipment when called,” he said.

The Army must also provide “greater clarity” on where it intends to spend research and development dollars, Murray said.

“I am convinced the Army should only be investing in the things that are most important to us and most likely in only the things that industry is not already heavily invested in,” he said.

That likely will include increased investment of rapid prototyping of next-generation combat systems that will find their way into the hands of soldiers faster. The intent is to gather user feedback through experimentation before requirements documents are written, effectively getting the Army out of development and into adoption of new technologies as they mature.

Behind-the-lines combat support platforms like the M113 and tactical trucks, will be maintained as long as possible to free up resources that will be shuffled to “more critical capabilities,” Murray said. When new technologies are sufficiently mature for acquisition, it is those fleets that will be the bill payers, he said.

“I’m almost certain you will see the Army continue to divest old, obsolete and excess equipment as quickly as we possibly can in order to, once again, free up resources for higher priorities,” Murray said.

Non-developmental technologies likewise will be important to rapidly fielding emerging technologies to counter emerging threats, Murray said. Examples already underway include a mobile short-range air defense (SHORAD) demonstration at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., and the effort to procure a light tank made from existing technologies for infantry brigades, dubbed Mobile Protected Firepower. MPF is on track to deliver technology demonstrators in spring 2018, Murray said.

While that is going on, programs like Future Vertical Lift and Next-Generation Combat Vehicle will keep tabs on the state-of-the-art technologies that will allow leap-ahead capabilities.

“The tank is a great example,” Murray said. “If I started building a new tank today, it would be a better tank, but I’m also convinced it would weigh somewhere between 70 and 80 tons. … Is there a breakthrough in material sciences that allows me to have the same level of protection at three-quarters or half the weight? So what are those key technologies that we ought to be watching and then once you identify those technologies we focus our S&T resources there and then you keep track.”